Ask the Author: Ray McCarthy
Answered Questions (6)
Ray McCarthy
I've no idea, really. Possibly sometimes news items, a passing comment in conversation or something incidental in a book.
"Hero Genie-Sys" was from a discussion about how silly "super heroes" are getting. After reading the quotes of the "Mystery Men" film, I decided I'm not funny enough to do a "take off" of the Superhero genre.
"My super power is the colour brown?"
"No, just brown."
The "Talents Universe" SF series was the result mashed up of designing a smart phone like device in 1987 and again in 2006, the impossibility of FTL (Faster Than Light) travel and reading far too many school stories (1780s to 1980s approx).
The "Otherworld" series was inspired by Irish myth & legends of the oldest kind and "what if" the Tuatha De were really the 1800BC to 500BC Bronze Age Celts (really displaced by Iron Age Celts) and really led to an "Otherworld" by Manannán Mac Lir. What would they be doing today? What if Manannán Mac Lir was really one of the Aes Sidhe? (Ash Shee, people of the mounds.)
"Hero Genie-Sys" was from a discussion about how silly "super heroes" are getting. After reading the quotes of the "Mystery Men" film, I decided I'm not funny enough to do a "take off" of the Superhero genre.
"My super power is the colour brown?"
"No, just brown."
The "Talents Universe" SF series was the result mashed up of designing a smart phone like device in 1987 and again in 2006, the impossibility of FTL (Faster Than Light) travel and reading far too many school stories (1780s to 1980s approx).
The "Otherworld" series was inspired by Irish myth & legends of the oldest kind and "what if" the Tuatha De were really the 1800BC to 500BC Bronze Age Celts (really displaced by Iron Age Celts) and really led to an "Otherworld" by Manannán Mac Lir. What would they be doing today? What if Manannán Mac Lir was really one of the Aes Sidhe? (Ash Shee, people of the mounds.)
Ray McCarthy
I can have a new book to read for free, with an ending I like! ^_^
Ray McCarthy
Read a few books outside your genre. Then start writing. Don't worry if it's no good. It's helpful to list plot, events, characters and possibly scenes / chapters. You don't have to write sequentially. You can (like film & TV production / recording) write scenes / chapters in any order. For detective / Romance/thriller/Spy etc maybe write the ending first.
Ray McCarthy
Keep writing. Avoid TV and Cinema, too visual. Understand your genre intimately but read widely outside of it.
Make sure you learn the rules of grammar and novel construction before you break them. Sometimes you need to break them, you need to know that's what you are doing.
Make sure you learn the rules of grammar and novel construction before you break them. Sometimes you need to break them, you need to know that's what you are doing.
Ray McCarthy
The most recent book or WIP (Work in Progress) is "The Fairy Godmother", perhaps #6 in the "Otherworld" series. I'll release #1, "Under the Stone of Destiny" soon.
I can't remember where the idea came from, exactly.
The most recently completed first draft is "The Mission's Talent". It started as an idea for a collaborative Space Opera with another author. I learnt two things:
1) Unless there is a printed "bible" or "wiki" of all the unpublished stuff in the other author's existing "world", collaboration only works on a new "world".
2) I can't do Space Opera.
I then changed it to be about people from our world abducted 3,000 years ago and more, discovered by the people on the starship at the start of "The Apprentice's Talent". It's set 20 years after "The Master's Talent", so likely I'll not release it till maybe 2018.
I can't remember where the idea came from, exactly.
The most recently completed first draft is "The Mission's Talent". It started as an idea for a collaborative Space Opera with another author. I learnt two things:
1) Unless there is a printed "bible" or "wiki" of all the unpublished stuff in the other author's existing "world", collaboration only works on a new "world".
2) I can't do Space Opera.
I then changed it to be about people from our world abducted 3,000 years ago and more, discovered by the people on the starship at the start of "The Apprentice's Talent". It's set 20 years after "The Master's Talent", so likely I'll not release it till maybe 2018.
Ray McCarthy
Mostly proof reading & last edit of "The Journeyman's Talent"
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